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Report: Zimbabwe price police to prosecute
overchargers

Monsters and Critics

Jan 7, 2008, 7:45 GMT

Harare/Johannesburg -
President Robert Mugabe's price police are getting ready to prosecute
shopowners who are flouting price controls as Zimbabweans struggle to afford
the most basic goods, state media reported Monday.

The National Incomes
and Pricing Commission (NIPC) set up after Mugabe's controversial programme
of price slashes in July has finished compiling a list of manufacturers,
shop owners and service providers who have been circumventing gazetted
prices and has handed over their names to the police for prosecution, said
the official Herald daily.

The Herald said recent weeks had seen a repeat
of the price madness that prompted the authorities to impose price slashes
last year.

More than 23,000 people were arrested and fined in the blitz,
which rapidly emptied supermarkets. Many basics like meat, bread and cooking
oil are still in short supply. Shop owners hesitate to replenish their
stocks because of the low prices imposed by the NIPC.

Prices have
shot up in recent weeks on the back of skyrocketing inflation now rumoured
to have topped 24,000 per cent and rampant cash shortages. A single chicken
was this weekend selling for more than 25 million Zimbabwe dollars, more
than a teacher's average monthly salary.

'We are aware of some
manufacturers and service providers who are contravening the pricing
regulations. So the commission has listed them and has since provided police
with the information for them to take action,' NIPC chairman Godwills
Masimirembwa said.

'We have held meetings with some of the manufacturers,
shop owners and service providers and we asked them to stick to the
stipulated prices but some have decided not to, obviously prompting us to
act accordingly,' he added.

An earlier threat from the NIPC to
prosecute overchargers was shot down by central bank governor Gideon Gono
who said consumers could not expect prices to remain the same in a
hyperinflationary environment.

In a separate editorial the Herald said
life had become unbearable for many Zimbabweans because of the rising cost
of goods.

Skyrocketing prices have left many Zimbabweans hopeless, not
knowing where their next meal would come from, despite availability of
commodities in supermarkets, said the Herald, urging police to swiftly
prosecute errant shop owners.

'We do not want the list to become one
of those that are compiled just to fill up office drawers, without taking
deterrent action against the offenders,' said the
paper.

Manufacturers and storekeepers say they have no choice but to hike
prices, given the rapid fall of the local dollar against major international
currencies.

Although the finance minister has fixed the official rate
of exchange at 30,000 Zimbabwe dollars to 1 US dollar, on the unofficial
black market the greenback trades at between 1.8 and 5 million
units.

Zanu PF forces traditional leaders to head rural party structures

By
Tichaona Sibanda7 January 2008

Traditional chiefs in most parts of
the Midlands province are being forced to take charge of cell branches of
the ruling Zanu-PF party, in attempt to coerce villagers in rural areas to
vote Zanu-PF, Newsreel learned on Monday.

Blessing Chebundo, the MDC MP
for KweKwe, told us that headmen and chiefs are being forced to join ruling
party structures starting from cell, up to district levels.

‘We have
received reports of intimidation and we also have irrefutable evidence of
chiefs and headmen being forced to become part and parcel of Zanu-PF. These
are all well orchestrated moves by the regime to ensure they force villagers
in rural areas to vote Zanu-PF,’ Chebundo said.

Chebundo’s allegations
come in the wake of reports over the weekend of Zanu-PF tightening the
screws on the operations of non-governmentalorganisations perceived to be
against the ruling party.

The Zimbabwe Standard reported that
intimidation and harassment of NGO workers by Zanu PF youth militia in rural
areas was increasing as the 2008 elections draw nearer.

Political
harassment is pronounced in rural areas countrywide where Zanu PF purports
to command most of its support. National Association for Non-Governmental
Organisations spokesman Fambayi Ngirande told the paper they were concerned
at the harassment of their affiliates.

He said; ‘We are worried by the
increasing cases where workers of NGOs are seen as enemies of the State. The
NGO Human Rights Forum has documented several such cases.’

The
Zimbabwe Peace Project (ZPP) said it has recorded increased cases of people
being intimidated for their involvement in civil society activities,ZPP said
among the organisations targeted are the Civic EducationNetwork Trust,
Zimbabwe Election Support Network, Women of Zimbabwe Arise and the National
Constitutional Assembly.

Harare says won’t touch farms protected under investment
treaties

HARARE – Zimbabwe says it will not evict white
farmers occupying properties protected under Bilateral Investments Promotion
and Protection Agreements (BIPA) until it puts together enough funds to pay
the affected farmers.

The decision to spare properties
protected under the investment treaties will come as a huge relief to
hundreds of farmers whose properties are still being targeted for seizure by
senior government officials.

According to minutes of a meeting held
between Lands Minister Didymus Mutasa and senior ruling ZANU PF officials in
Harare last month, the government ordered that the farmers should stay on
their properties until it raises enough funds to compensate the
farmers.

“They (the farmers) should remain there as the government
is going to compensate the former owners as per BIPA agreements,” said
Mutasa in the minutes of the meeting.

The weekend meeting was
called to thrash out issues concerning the continuing occupation of farms,
some which are covered under bilateral agreements between Harare and foreign
governments.

Among those who attended the meeting were ZANU PF
Mashonaland West provincial chairman, John Mafa, Mashonaland West governor
Nelson Samkange, the President of the Senate Edna Madzongwe and State Policy
Minister Webster Shamu.

ZANU PF officials have over the past
few months led fresh farm invasions particularly in Mashonaland West
province as they sought to kick out the remaining few white farmers in the
country.

There are just about 600 white farmers who are still
occupying their properties following the controversial land reform programme
that saw President Robert Mugabe parcel former white land to landless
Zimbabweans.

The government, which argued that the land reforms
were necessary to correct historical imbalances in land allocation, even
disregarded BIPA agreements during the mayhem.

Under the terms
of the agreement, farms and other investments should be exempted from
seizures.

A group of 10 Dutch farmers have taken the Zimbabwean
government to the International Centre for the Settlement of Investment
Disputes seeking compensation following their eviction from the
properties.

The farmers say Mugabe should accept liability for
breaching a bilateral treaty signed between Harare and the Netherlands. The
court is still to rule on the matter. - ZimOnline

Mugabe churchman conducts rival service in
Harare

HARARE – There was chaos as the Anglican’s St Mary’s and
All Saints Cathedral in Harare yesterday after ousted controversial bishop
Nolbert Kunonga held a rival service under heavy police
presence.

Kunonga, who is a vocal supporter of President Robert Mugabe,
is refusing to leave office as archbishop of Harare after he arbitrarily
pulled out the diocese from the Province of Central Africa.

The
Province of Central has since appointed the retired Bishop Sebastian Bakare
to take over from Kunonga.

On Saturday, Father Morris Brown Gwedegwe
claimed Kunonga was still in charge of the diocese.

"The only bishop
who is there is Bishop Kunonga and you can see that all priests attended our
meeting," Gwedegwe said.

But events proved otherwise yesterday when the
majority of the Cathedral parishioners attended a service in the church's
hall conducted by Father Webster Mahwindo, who had been posted to Bindura by
Kunonga two years ago.

Kunonga's faction held its own service at the same
time in the main church, led by Father Caxton Mabhoyi.

"We decided at
our vestry on Saturday that we should hold a separate service because we no
longer recognise Bishop Kunonga," a warden of the Bakare faction announced
yesterday.

"Bishop Bakare will be formally appointed at a function which
the leaders of the Province of Central Africa will attend on February 3, and
we hope our colleagues would have seen the light and joined us."

The
warden said they had to hire the police force for protection during the
service after violent skirmishes that have rocked the diocese since Bakare's
appointment.

Kunonga's supporters have allegedly been attacking
parishioners who back Bakare.

Kunonga has in the past vociferously
defended Mugabe over his controversial policies particularly the violent
seizure of white farms for redistribution to landless blacks eight years
ago. - ZimOnline

Zimbabwe’s economic lights to get dimmer in
2008

Zim Online

by Tsungai Murandu Monday 07 January
2008

HARARE – Little is expected to change in Zimbabwe’s
economic fortunes amid bleak forecasts by analysts concerned about the
impact of President Robert Mugabe’s political policies ahead of this year’s
watershed polls.

According to the analysts, Zimbabwe would continue to be
a victim of Mugabe’s political policies, especially as the country glides
towards combined presidential, parliamentary, senatorial and council
elections that the beleaguered Zimbabwean leader has to win at any
cost.

Shortages of goods and services are expected to wreck havoc on the
tottering southern African economy once described by the World Bank as the
worst performing country outside a war zone.

A four-month shortage of
banknotes has continued to hog the limelight despite desperate attempts by
the central Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) to rid the country of so-called
cash barons.

The shortages are seen continuing for the foreseeable future
as long as inflation remains the country’s number one
scourge.

Consultant economist John Robertson said one of the main drivers
of the economic meltdown would continue to be money printing during the next
three months as the government desperately tries to win votes.

“We
expect much more inflation during the coming months because government needs
to continue printing money to finance its expenditure in the face of its
poor credit rating,” Robertson said.

The government would need to print
more money to finance salary increases for civil servants, political
campaigning for the ruling ZANU PF party ahead of the elections and to
finance regular needs such as fuel and power imports.

The RBZ is
expected to continue scrounging the illegal foreign currency market for hard
cash to finance energy imports, helping to further weaken the Zimbabwe
dollar exchange rate and worsening the inflation outlook.

Zimbabwe’s
headline inflation, estimated at nearly 15 000 percent last October and
considered the highest in the world, is seen climbing drastically until
March.

Bulawayo-based economic commentator Eric Bloch said month-on-month
inflation, which reflects movements in prices of goods and services, was
expected to rise between January and March driven by populist policies meant
to win the elections for ZANU PF.

“I see inflation averaging 120
percent for the first three months of the year,” Bloch told
ZimOnline.

He, however, said headline inflation could ease to around 12
000 percent by year-end on the back of a progressive easing of pressure on
prices from May assuming there is a change in the economic direction of the
country.

The analysts said a change in the country’s economic fortunes
would require some painful policy decisions by whoever comes into power in
March.

“I am expecting nothing to come from the elections unless there is
a change in political policies,” said Robertson.

These would include
improving the productivity of the business sector and viability of
Zimbabwe’s export sector as well as a drastic cut in government spending and
returning agriculture to its former glory.

Zimbabwe’s industrial sector
was last year estimated to be operating at below 30 percent of its capacity,
largely due to the government’s incoherent economic policies such as price
and exchange controls.

“Another price blitz, which we suspect the
government could come up with before the March elections, will effectively
drive the industry into the ground and cause more hardships for the whole
spectrum of society,” said an investment analyst who could not be named for
professional reasons.

Mugabe ordered producers to slash prices by half
last June under a campaign to reduce inflation.

The price blitz
triggered the closure of several companies in the manufacturing and retail
sectors. - ZimOnline

Zimbabwe’s economic collapse almost complete

By Lance Guma07 January
2008

Zimbabwe’s drift towards total economic collapse is edging closer to
reality as just about all sectors of the economy go into meltdown. Doctors,
nurses, magistrates, prosecutors and other court staff are on strike while
the entire population battles a crippling cash shortage that has denied
people access to their own money in the banks. This week began with reports
that banks were dealing with an additional problem. They are now unable to
dispense money because their machines rely on electricity.

The queues
for cash have also cost the lives of many, including former journalist Kevin
Johnson. He was seriously ill with a chronic illness but his family was
unable to access money to pay a private clinic that was demanding Z$600
million upfront. The electricity cuts also meant he was unable to get a
blood transfusion as the blood supplies had gone bad, because of the lack of
power for refrigeration. His wife called her brother in-law to arrange for a
bed without a deposit at St Annes Hospital in Harare, but by this was time
Mr. Johnson had bled to death.

Tourist destinations have not been spared.
Those staying in hotels in the lower Bvumba area have been without
electricity since the 9th December. Local papers say the theft of cables has
made things worse and there is a real likelihood the entire mountain range
and surrounding areas could be without electricity very soon. Hotels battled
to honour bookings made by their customers for the Christmas and New Year
holidays.

Millions of urban residents in the country are also faced with
chronic water shortages as the Zimbabwe National Water Authority (ZINWA)
battle to maintain or even repair pumping equipment for water supplies. Even
the heavy rains wreaking havoc across the country have not helped reduce the
water problems. Foreign currency shortages have meant ZINWA is unable to
import much needed chemicals to treat water and as a result there is not
enough clean drinking water to service the major towns. There are reports of
dysentery and diarrhoea outbreaks in areas like Mabvuku and Tafara and these
are spreading to other parts of Harare.

Meanwhile magistrates who
went on strike demanding better pay and working conditions are reported to
have rejected a 600 percent pay rise offer from government. The state owned
Sunday Mail reported that magistrates and prosecutors were set to earn
between Z$316 million and Z$1 billion a month, following their 3 month
strike which began in October. The Secretary in the Justice Ministry David
Mangota said they would pay the staff half their salaries mid-month and the
remainder at the end of the month. But our correspondent Simon Muchemwa says
the state media reports are misleading. The strikers say only regional
magistrates have been given awards in that region, while the junior
magistrates have been offered Z$150 million a month. They say this offer is
not enough.

As if to highlight the depth of the crisis the pay increases
awarded to civil servants by government have coincided with a hike in the
cost of utility bills. Zimbabwe’s hyper-inflation means any pay rises are
meaningless, within days.

Lessons for nation building

by Mutumwa Mawere

Zimbabwe – Nathaniel
Manheru/Charamba and lessons for nation building

Zimbabwe will turn 28
this year not because the country did not have a history prior to
independence but citizens chose to build a new civilization in 1979 based on
a just and democratic constitutional order underpinned by a simple concept
of self government.

The post colonial state was a product of a protracted
civil rights struggle and I would like to think that many would agree that
the Zimbabwe of today is not exactly what the struggle was meant to help
establish.

On paper, Zimbabwe is a democratic state but if there is a
more potent threat to Zimbabwe’s constitutional order, Mr. Charamba,
President Mugabe’s chief spin doctor, would top the list.

He writes a
weekly column that is published by the state controlled daily newspaper, the
Herald, in which he expresses views that exposes the extent of the collapse
of the semblance of a constitutional order that is normally expected in a
democratic society.

Having followed some of Charamba’s articles, I have
come to the inescapable conclusion that in as much as many people may
believe that President Mugabe is the sole poison pill to national progress,
the real problem lies in our generation of which Charamba can count as my
contemporary but whose views pose a much more significant problem for
Zimbabwe to extricate itself from the avoidable humanly created economic and
political quagmire.

President Mugabe is on record saying that the destiny
of Zimbabwe can only be shaped by its citizens who ultimately should own the
nation building project. At the core of the foundational principles of the
post colonial state was the notion that citizens would create their own
government and express their wishes through the constitutionally defined
channels.

It was never part of the deal that the constitution would be
cynically interpreted to allow a single individual to monopolize state power
even in the face of monumental failure and then rely on state power to
intimidate citizens into believing that there is no alternative than to
surrender their sovereignty to an exclusive club with the monopoly of
abusing the media to advance views that threaten the very constitutional
order that the President purports to uphold.

Although ZANU-PF has
dominated the post colonial era, it cannot be said that the framers of the
constitution of Zimbabwe intended to create a situation where the ruling
party and the state would be one thing. Indeed, reading the diatribe of
Charamba confirms that either he is unaware that the state belongs to
citizens and ZANU-PF should be nothing but a club of believers and members
or he thinks that citizens should be mere pawns that are occasionally used
to legitimize through the electoral process a predetermined
outcome.

It seems odd that a civil servant working for the people would
openly insult his masters without whose sweat and taxes the state would not
exist and ultimately he would be in the ranks of the condemned majority
poor.

Although he uses the name Manheru, his cover has already been
exposed. He is, evidently, not afraid to air his partisan and often
offensive views as would any rational civil servant working as a permanent
secretary for a state institution.

The head of the civil service
under a properly functioning democratic order would ordinarily be apolitical
and the name Permanent Secretary was deliberately chosen to highlight the
permanency of the job. In other words, the change of a government would
ideally not have any impact on the civil service.

It cannot be said
that Charamba behaves like a civil servant rather he behaves like an
intellectual terrorist armed with the venom that can only be expected from a
political commissar. It is evident that Charamba has reached a point of no
return and he has chosen to identify himself as a revolutionary civil
servant prosecuting a national democratic revolution that so far has failed
to confer real benefits to citizens.

To the extent that Charamba appears
to believe that democracy, rule of law and human and property rights are a
nuisance, it is reasonable to ask why President Mugabe, his principal, would
subscribe to elections if the outcome of such democratic experiments could
produce undesirable outcomes.

Although the constitution of Zimbabwe is
clear and deliberate in terms of the bill of rights, the last 28 years have
created an atmosphere of fear where citizens who may aspire to be considered
for political office are easily dismissed, vilified and scandalised by
so-called civil servants.

Would Charamba be prepared to serve any other
person than President Mugabe? Is it in the national interest for a highly
opinionated civil servant to be on the payroll of the state rather than the
party?

Zimbabweans have allowed their civil service to be polluted by
political prostitutes who have no respect for the constitutional order that
their masters purport to respect.

Some have argued that due to
externally influenced factors, Zimbabwe should suspend the democratic order
so that the state is not accountable to its masters, the citizens, until the
so-called bilateral dispute with the former colonial master is
resolved.

We can see in the actions of Gono and Charamba that they have
accepted that any other democratic choice expressed by the people of
Zimbabwe would not be acceptable if it did not yield a predetermined
outcome.

ZANU-PF is supposed to be a juristic person in its own right
with a separate and distinct existence from the state. However, Charamba
whose position in the party is not known appears to have stepped into the
shoes of Professor Moyo to act in a Nazi-style manner with no regard to the
constitutional consequences effectively making the state an agent of the
ruling party.

Ideally, any government should belong to all the citizens
and transparency would be the only basis on which a state can function in a
democratic order.

In the minds of Charamba and similar sycophants it
seems that they have accepted that citizens should not have a right to
question government actions and even peoples’ representatives in parliament
like Butau are exposed to the worst form of intimidation.

I read
Charamba’s article entitled “Zim: Lessons from a splitting rainbow” that was
published by the Herald on Saturday, 5 January 2008. Charamba is
characteristic style was not interested in state matters but with the threat
to ZANU-PF of an alleged project to broaden the menu of political options
available to Zimbabweans in the forthcoming elections.

It is not
surprising that Charamba would hold Simba Makoni, a member of the politburo
of ZANU-PF, in contempt only because of allegations that he may be
considering becoming a candidate in the 2008 elections.

Ordinarily
any civil servant working for the state in a democratic order would be
indifferent to political contestants but this is no longer the case in
Charamba’s Zimbabwe.

Charamba has no shame in using Makoni’s taxes
against his democratic right to make himself available if nominated to stand
as a candidate.

Who would have thought that the country that the likes of
Chitepo, Tongogara, Joshua Nkomo, Ndabaningi Sithole and others would end up
a hostage of people like Charamba and his ilk.

His dismisses Makoni
using the state newspapers without allowing citizens to make their own
informed choices. If Makoni is disqualified because of incompetence I am not
sure what rational Zimbabweans would say freely about the performance of the
state over the last 28 years under Charamba’s boss?

Charamba then goes on
diminish the role played by Ibbo Mandaza whose record in the post colonial
state is well established. I am informed that Mandaza worked for the state
for 10 years and it is irresponsible for anyone working for the same
administration to seek to undermine the record of a former colleague just
because he has chosen to exercise his constitutional right to seek to
advance the cause of change.

I should point out that I hold no brief to
represent both Makoni and Mandaza but find it unacceptable that Charamba
would arrogate to him the role of a custodian of the national democratic
revolution project in a partisan manner.

If it is true that Makoni is
associated with a project that would increase the available choices for
Zimbabweans notwithstanding his alleged questionable credentials, anyone who
loves Zimbabwe and is cognisant of the current policy bankruptcy and
rudderless navigation would support such courage.

Is it not strange
that it now takes courage to even accept to be a candidate for political
office in post colonial Zimbabwe, a country that rose from the womb of
colonial oppression?

I am not sure what the heroes and heroines buried at
the heroes’ acre would think of Charamba’s views against Tsvangirai,
Chibhebe and others who have taken it upon themselves that Zimbabwe needs a
change of direction.

The real reason for me to write the article is
partly to address the comments made by Charamba in response to my article
that exposed the hypocrisy of the RBZ in the ongoing Butau saga. This is
what Charamba had to say:”Mawere, poor Mawere!

To have an opponent
like Mutumwa Mawere is a blessing. You never struggle for feedback. I am
sure Charamba relishes his tango with him. I mean if such a pithy line on
Butau is acknowledged so profusely, so sanctimoniously, so expansively, who
needs to cast lots to tell where and how the blow has fallen and has been
received respectively?

What piqued and hurt this born-again South
African? A mere reference to fugitives who run and run until they
unfailingly hit the shores of Albion? Fugitives who know no other land to
run to?

And he dares talk about Gono and patronage. He, of all people?
What business did he start here without Zanu-PF and Government guarantees
and patronage? Let him not push his luck too far, this clever-for-nothing
bitter charlatan. Tizvinyore. Ngaati pwee. Icho!

He obviously sees me
as an opponent which is expected from any civil servant that does not
understand the role of the state. It is wrong for Charamba to see my
criticism of the manner in which he is politicising the civil service as
personal. I am sure that if the Public Service Commission still exists in
Zimbabwe, the comments made by Charamba about Butau and other so-called
fugitives would be of concern warranting disciplinary action.

As long
as Charamba is an organ of the state it cannot be acceptable that he thinks
he is above the law. He makes the statement above that his comments about
the role of the West in allegedly undermining the interests of Zimbabwe was
not targeted at me and, therefore, I should stay out of the fray as if to
suggest that people are only entitled to comment on matters that affect them
personally.

Charamba recklessly uses the term “fugitive” to describe not
only Butau but Makamba, Mushore, Makoni, and others and attempts to make a
distinction between the so-called fugitives that are domiciled in the shores
of Albion and those domiciled in Africa suggesting that the term has
territorial application.

The use of the term fugitive to describe the
circumstances of Butau and others is not only mischievous but irresponsible.
According to what has been published so far in relation to Butau, it is
evident that he cannot be classified as a fugitive for to be a fugitive one
would have to fall in anyone of the following categories:

1. If one
has run away from Zimbabwe when charges were being formulated against
him;2. If one has breached any bail given to him;3. If one has escaped
from prison4. If one has left Zimbabwe to avoid any legal
process;

Charamba is fully aware that all that Butau has done is simply
to exercise a constitutional right to require the government of Zimbabwe to
act in terms of the law if he is to face charges in Zimbabwe. We all know
what happened to Kuruneri, Makamba and others who after being unlawfully
placed on remand were eventually acquitted by the courts.

Would Butau
have been treated any differently from Kuruneri, a former cabinet minister,
who only last week was set free by a Supreme Court judge? Kuruneri’s
circumstances are not different from the allegations against Butau. What is
striking is that Kuruneri, Butau and Makamba are all from Mashonaland
Central Province where Vice President Mujuru comes from giving credence that
the selective targeting of people by Gono may be driven by an ulterior
motive.

To the extent that the Zimbabwean police are looking for Butau
for the purpose of investigating certain allegations, he cannot be
considered to be a fugitive. He ran away from nothing and in any democratic
society it would be unacceptable for citizens to be presumed guilty before
the intervention of the judiciary. The outburst of Charamba goes a long way
towards confirming that Zimbabwe is no longer a democratic state in which
the separation of powers doctrine is applicable.

If a duly elected
Member of Parliament and a Chairman of the powerful Budge and Finance
Committee is susceptible to intimidation then citizens have reason to be
concerned. Butau has not left Zimbabwe to avoid any legal process but like
Joshua Nkomo before him came to the conclusion that things have fallen apart
and no interests of justice would be served by exposing himself to what the
likes of Kuruneri endured.

It is interesting that Charamba is of the view
that Butau ought to have been included in the sanctions list and is angry
that the British chose to omit his name. Why would the government of
Zimbabwe be concerned about a sanctions list when the official position is
that they are illegal? If Butau is not on the sanctions list, then how can
President Mugabe blame the same ineffective sanctions on the economic
collapse?

I am sure that Charamba is aware of the call by a state
Prosecutor, Mr. Tawanda Zvekare, in the Manjoro case in which Butau is
alleged to have facilitated the procurement of foreign currency for an
investigation to establish the circumstances surrounding the release of more
than Z$7 trillion by the RBZ to Flatwater Investments, a shelf
company.

He urged the court to give an order for thorough investigations
into the matter saying the central bank should have verified the suitability
of Flatwater Investments to be contracted to procure tractors for the
mechanisation programme before releasing the money. Charamba should be
concerned like any loyal and honest civil servant about what Manjoro said in
court regarding the mandate he got from the RBZ to import tractors from a
pre-selected foreign supplier, Michigan Tractors, a company allegedly
connected to Gono.

If Mr Zvekare can openly blame the RBZ, as
reported by the Herald, for disbursing Z$7 trillion without undertaking any
due diligence on the beneficiary, then why is it that Charamba sees no
problem in focusing his attention on the RBZ?

With respect to the
RBZ’s role in the Butau saga, this is what Zvekare had to say in
court:

"The firm contracted Manjoro to source foreign currency on the
black market on their behalf, who also subcontracted several runners like
(fugitive MP David) Butau to assist him. The rest of the money given to
Manjoro is not accounted for and the rest of the money he gave to his
friends is also not accounted for. What we have now is a grand theft
involving the RBZ itself.

I find it incredulous that a whole central bank
of a country would release trillions to a company on the strength of a mere
letter, which was not verified. This marks of a conspiracy between the
central bank and the company to steal all this money.

Right from the
RBZ to the lowest runner at Road Port no mercy should be accorded them. The
court should give an order for thorough investigations right up to the
central bank to avoid a situation whereby the courts would be only dealing
with runners instead of cash barons and baronesses."

Even President
Mugabe would agree that if what Zvekare said is true about the RBZ then it
would not be in the national interest for him not to take responsibility for
the decay.

Charamba then challenges my views on Gono and the mafia-style
operations of the RBZ. He alleges that my business was started with ZANU-PF
and government guarantees and patronage and then fails to expose how such
patronage manifested itself. Surely, for a spin doctor like Charamba it
should not be difficult for him to expose me. Why try to protect the public
from knowing the truth about my businesses? If my businesses were corruptly
acquired, then surely Charamba should not hesitate naming my accomplices?
Why would Charamba seek to expose Butau and then refuse to expose my alleged
benefactors?

He threatens me not to push my luck too far suggesting
that if I heed the message then he will have no incentive to tell the public
the truth about me. I am challenging Charamba openly to expose any
information that may be available to him substantiating his baseless
allegation that I acquired Shabanie Mashaba Mines (Private) Limited in 1996
using a government guarantee. It is important that Charamba grows up and
walk the talk. The public deserves to know the truth.

Breakdown plunges
parts of Zimbabwe into darkness

Some parts of Zimbabwe were yesterday
plunged into darkness following a major breakdown at Hwange Thermal Power
Station and a minor fault at Kariba Power Station.

The breakdown at the
two power stations have resulted in the loss of at least 80 megawatts at
Hwange and about 125 MW at Kariba, which generates about 730 MW at full
capacity. The situation was also further worsened by the electricity
supplies, which were cut off by Mozambican power firms Hidroelectrica de
Mozambique and Electrica de Mozambique, which provide 300MW to
Zimbabwe.

The affected towns and cities include parts of Harare,
Kadoma, Chipinge, Chegutu, Chiredzi and Marondera. In Harare, suburbs
including Warren Park, Hillside, Borrowdale, Avondale, Kuwadzana and Glen
View were affected. The power cuts also affected telephones as most
landlines were down.Zesa Holdings chief executive Engineer Benjamin Rafemoyo
said electricity supply disruptions and blackouts being experienced in some
parts of the country were as a result of the breakdown at Hwange and Kariba
Power Stations.

"We had reduced electricity generation yesterday morning
at Hwange Thermal Power Station as all our mills were out as a result of the
breakdown of machinery that processes coal," Eng Rafemoyo said. The
machines, which broke down, are used to process wet coal. Eng Rafemoyo said
the engineers were working flat out to repair the units at Hwange, which
should be running by next week. In Kariba one of the units developed a leak
and this led to reduction in power generation but engineers were attending
to the problem. Eng Rafemoyo also said the refurbishment of other units at
the power station would increase generation and ease power cuts.

He
said the power cuts were being worsened by the debt to Mozambican power
firms. "The major impact we have was the failure to access supplies from
Mozambique because of credit control issues. We hope they (Mozambique power
firms) will install us again," he said.Zesa recently reduced its debt to the
firms by US$7 million bringing to US$35 million the amount it has paid to
Hidroelectrica de Mozambique and Electrica de Mozambique.

In November
last year, Zesa paid a total of US$28 million it owed the power
firms.

"God Only Loves Mugabe"

IPSnews

By Elles van
Gelder

JOHANNESBURG and PLUMTREE, South-Western Zimbabwe, Jan 7 (IPS) -
Sikhumbuzo* was only 18 when he left Zimbabwe for South Africa. He managed
to find a job, and sends home close on 150 dollars a month in cash and goods
-- although he can’t say how many people he supports. Sitting in a café in
the financial hub of Johannesburg, Sikhumbuzo (now 25) tells of a mother and
sister in Bulawayo, south-western Zimbabwe; aunts, uncles and cousins also
get part of what he sends.

Hundreds of thousands of others find
themselves in Sikhumbuzo's position, and the influx of Zimbabweans to South
Africa shows no signs of diminishing as economic difficulties in their
country deepen and the political crisis there continues. Mismanagement of a
state that was once a regional breadbasket has brought about
hyper-inflation, poverty and widespread unemployment, obliging citizens to
make their living across the border -- the principal destination being
South Africa. The United Nations World Food Programme estimates that four
million Zimbabweans, about a third of the population, are in need of food
aid.

Ahead of elections scheduled for March, government has been engaged
in talks with the two factions of the opposition Movement for Democratic
Change (MDC), the target -- along with others -- of extensive human rights
abuses over recent years. But even as negotiations are underway, said
Amnesty International recently, violations continue.

Just over 40
percent of Zimbabwean migrants in South Africa take care of three to four
people, and 30 percent more than five people -- this according to research
conducted by the University of South Africa (UNISA) under the auspices of
the Zimbabwe Diaspora Forum, based in South Africa; the Mass Public Opinion
Institute, a non-profit in Zimbabwe's capital, Harare; and the Institute for
Democracy in South Africa.

For the study, a team interviewed 4,654
Zimbabweans in the Johannesburg suburbs of Berea, Hillbrow and Yeoville.
UNISA professor Daniel Makina, who headed the team, thinks there are about
800,000 to a million Zimbabweans in South Africa, far less than the more
widely-cited estimates of two to three million -- although he acknowledges
that these figures need further research.

His findings show that most
of the migrants left Zimbabwe after 2001. Their motivation, at first, was
related to intimidation and torture by government forces. But for some time
now, economic issues have topped the list of reasons for
leaving.

Those who manage to enter South Africa find that life in this
country can present a new set of difficulties. With unemployment at about 40
percent, there is competition for jobs -- and feelings of anger towards
migrants, seen as reducing employment prospects for locals. Work, when it is
available, is often badly paid: 60 percent of Zimbabwean migrants earn less
than 300 dollars a month, Makina’s research shows.

The research also
indicates that the vast majority of migrants send home money or goods to an
average value of about 40 dollars, monthly. This may not sound like much;
but when the number of Zimbabweans in South Africa is considered, a
different picture emerges. If there are indeed some 800,000 Zimbabweans in
South Africa, of whom just half have work, then they could be sending home
upwards of 190 million dollars annually. Added to this is the money sent by
Zimbabweans living elsewhere in the region, and further afield, notably
Britain.

Florence, 48, is another migrant who is keeping a family afloat
-- nine people, to be precise. She arrived in South Africa at a time when it
was easy to get a work permit, and has now been in the country for 11
years.

Florence cares for the son of expatriates; none of her family
members in Zimbabwe is employed. They do own a piece of land near Plumtree
in south-western Zimbabwe where they grow vegetables -- but have struggled
with farming in past months because of poor rains.

Every month,
Florence sends home money and goods such as maize meal, paraffin, soap,
sugar and clothing. She also sends building materials, because she is
putting up a house for herself on the family property.

On this land, some
800 kilometres from Johannesburg, goats wander around amid Mopane scrub, the
bells around their necks tinkling; granite hills can be seen on the horizon.
Florence's son lives in a one-room home, which contains a bed, an old
bicycle and some cupboards; he says his mother takes good care of the
family.

The relatives had planned to put on the roof of Florence's house
last year, but needed additional zinc sheets. Letting her know that two more
had to be sent the next month involved walking to a village about 15
kilometres away, to make a call using the phone of a friend.

Makina
says his research indicates that two thirds of the Zimbabwean migrants
living in South Africa would return home if the political and economical
situation north of the border improved. Florence is a case in point. "My
mother is old and needs my love. I am only here because I have to
(be)."

Sikhumbuzo also wants to go back, but doesn't hold out much
hope of being able to do so soon. "I will only return when...President
Mugabe is gone," he says, in reference to head of state Robert Mugabe. "For
a long time, I prayed every day for change in Zimbabwe. I stopped. I think
God only loves Mugabe. For now, I will stay in South Africa."

*
Certain names in this article have been changed to ensure the safety of the
people concerned.

Zim prosecutors, magistrates weigh new salary
offer

HARARE – Zimbabwe prosecutors and magistrates meet in
Harare today to decide whether to call off a three-month strike after the
government offered to hike their salaries by more than 2 000
percent.

The government at the weekend offered to hike the salaries of
prosecutors and magistrates to between Z$360 million and $1 billion. The
court officials have been on strike since last October demanding more pay to
cushion them against runaway inflation. Previously, the lowest paid among
magistrates and prosecutors earned Z$20 million per month.

The
judicial officers, who are scheduled to meet at 11am at the regional
magistrates court in Harare, on Sunday expressed mixed feelings on the
government salary offer, which some described as “almost useless given the
rate of inflation and the high levels of taxation in the country.”

"I
really wonder why they took so long to award the salaries, but most of my
workmates are pretty unhappy about it whilst others are just adopting a wait
and see attitude," said a prosecutor, who declined to be
named.

Zimbabwe's economic crisis, highlighted by the world’s highest
inflation at about 8 000 percent, has since last year triggered wildcat
strikes by workers pressing for more pay.

Doctors, nurses as well as
teachers have all at one point or another during the past year boycotted
work to press for more money, in a country that is officially experiencing
classical hyperinflation with prices rising by more than 50 percent on
month-on-month basis.

The Hospital Doctors Association, whose members
have been on strike since December, says a limited number of doctors have
returned to work on humanitarian grounds but most are still holding out for
higher pay.

The Progressive Teachers Union of Zimbabwe warned last month
that teachers might not return to work when schools open for the new term
next week unless salaries were hiked to about $300 million per month up from
about $20 million.

Zimbabwe’s deep recession, which critics blame on
repression and wrong economic policies by veteran President Robert Mugabe,
has left more than 80 percent of the country’s labour force without jobs and
shortages of food, fuel and foreign currency.

Mugabe, in power since
Zimbabwe’s 1980 independence from Britain and seeking another five-year term
in elections in March, denies that his policies are responsible for the
economic meltdown and instead blames his country’s problems on sabotage by
Western governments he says are out to topple him. - ZimOnline

Govt policy condemns
thousands to poverty, ignorance

The Zimbabwean

Monday, 07 January 2008 17:04

MASVINGO - Ruvimbo
Manjoro (13) of Govo village in Masvingo, has just passed Grade Seven with
flying colours.Manjoro has always been at the top of her class and her
teachers thought she could turn out to be anything she wanted to be.
However, there is nothing certain anymore for the young girl who has always
wanted to be a doctor. Her father, Tobias Manjoro, has recently moved out of
Govo village to a remote farm, under the land grab programme. There are no
schools or clinics there - not even borehole water to drink."I don't
think she will be able to go to school this year," says Manjoro's father.
"There are no schools here, especially secondary schools, and even if there
were schools I am only left with one cow and I cannot sell it to send her to
school."The nearest secondary school, Mudavanhu, lies about 50km from the
farm. Manjoro's case is not unique, according to a Unicef education project
officer. The organisation has been monitoring the movement of children since
the beginning of the land redistribution process."The patterns are not
very clear because some parents are leaving their children in the villages
with relatives to attend school while they move to new areas. However, an
estimated 400 000 children have been affected," says the aid
worker.According to government figures at least 450,000 families people have
moved from the communal areas onto farms under the land grab programme. "It
has affected the provision of education in a very significant way," said the
aid worker. "I don't think the government will be able to provide
infrastructure for 90percent of the affected areas in the next 10 to 15
years. There hasn't been enough infrastructure anywhere and this just
aggravates the problem".Many schools report dwindling pupil numbers since
the relocation to remote farms began. "Classes are basically getting empty
as more and more children pull out of school to join their families in
farms," says one school principal who refused to be named. "We don't know if
children will come back when schools reopen," he said.The Zimbabwean
government has not paid much attention to this issue. According to Didymus
Mutasa, the minister for Land Reform, the priority is on land. "As the
president has said, land first and infrastructure will follow. The
government's focus at the moment is on land and we will look at education,
health and other things at a later stage. Children cannot go to school if
they are impoverished. We first deal with the problem of poverty by
providing land and then come other things," he said.Recently the Ministry of
State Information and Publicity has published a 100-page document on the
land redistribution programme, but the document doesn't deal with education,
health or any other form of development.Mutasa said the government would
seek aid from international donors to provide the infrastructure for
schools, roads, clinics, water, electricity and houses. "We will invite
international donors to assist with infrastructure but we will not allow
them to interfere with policy issues."However, Unicef says it is going to be
very difficult for the Zimbabwean government to attract foreign donors as
international organisations such as the UN do not support the current policy
on land redistribution.

Zimbabwean exile calls for vote delay

Gabriel Shumba,
executive director of the Zimbabwe Exiles Forum, says pressure from outside
the country should be brought to delay his country's March presidential
election.

"International pressure is needed to ensure that elections are
delayed to allow for the rectification of all shortfalls in the process, as
well as to ensure that those in exile are allowed to vote," Shumba said in
an email exchange from Pretoria, South Africa, where more than 2 million
Zimbabweans have sought refuge.

"The upcoming elections cannot by any
stretch of the imagination be deemed free and fair if they are held in
March."

Shumba came to Canada in 2006, as a guest of Montreal-based
Rights & Democracy, to talk about human rights abuses under Robert
Mugabe, who is seeking re-election as Zimbabwe's president at age
84.

Irregularities in
Zimbabwe's 2002 presidential election led to the country's suspension from
the Commonwealth.

Shumba said Zimbabwe's opposition Movement for
Democratic Change is split and this could allow Mugabe, who has ruled the
country with an iron grip since 1980, to win this time even without rigging
the vote.

"It is a capital indictment of our opposition that at a time
when our people are suffering, they have to bicker and quarrel over
personality and other differences when they should be working to unite the
people against a regime that has exhibited scant regard for the people's
welfare, let alone their fundamental human rights," he
said.

"Mugabe's regime has tortured thousands, massacred more than 30,000
since the 1980s, has starved and displaced millions. This alone should have
given the opposition a win in any free and fair election."

Shumba
said laws stifling democratic rights of association, assembly and expression
work against the opposition party. As well, about a quarter of the
population has fled the country, some to Canada, and can't vote in the March
election.

Mugabe controls much of the media and authorities can intercept
all reporters' phone, Internet, and mail communications. Information
Minister Sikhanyiso Ndlovu explained last year the law targets
"imperialist-sponsored journalists with hidden agendas" and aims "to protect
the president, a minister, or any citizen from harm."

The New
York-based Committee to Protect Journalists has documented the beating,
jailing and expulsion of journalists who don't toe the Mugabe
line.

Still, some journalists and newspapers in Zimbabwe openly defy
Mugabe.

The Financial Gazette of Harare, the Zimbabwe capital, reports
that reformers within Mugabe's Zimbabwe African National Union - Patriotic
Front party are talking with the opposition MDC party, pointing to Mugabe's
"unyielding grip on power" as their motivation.

Quoting unnamed
sources, the newspaper says the MDC and the ZANU-PF dissidents are trying to
agree on a candidate to oppose Mugabe. It also says Mugabe's intelligence
operatives are "sniffing around" for clues about this
development.

Martin, who wants to prosecute Mugabe for crimes against
humanity, estimates inflation is 25,000 per cent, as the Zimbabwe economy
melts down and people starve or flee.

Shumba said the official
inflation rate is 14,000 per cent, but independent analysts put it at about
150,000 per cent and the International Monetary Fund predicted inflation
could rise to 400,000 per cent.

Mugabe blames Western interference for
the cash crisis, but Shumba says Canada should not back down over such
unfounded accusations, intended to mask human-rights abuses.

"We live
in a global village where the abuse of human rights in one part of the globe
is likely to affect another part of the globe," he said.

Floods hit southern Africa, more than 1 mln at risk

Reuters

Mon 7 Jan
2008, 17:36 GMT

By Shapi Shacinda

LUSAKA, Jan 7 (Reuters) - Zambia
said 1.5 million people would be displaced by floods and aid agencies warned
the lives of tens of thousands were in danger on Monday as rising waters
inundated southern Africa.

Zambia put half of its territory on alert,
while floods in Mozambique, fed by heavy rains from there and Zimbabwe,
killed six people and cut major transport links to neighbouring countries,
relief officials said.

The early heavy rains have swollen rivers to
alarming levels across the region, catching authorities off guard and
forcing governments and aid agencies to step up efforts to avert
crisis.

"At least 1.5 million will be displaced by the floods and the
government and aid groups will have to provide relief food and shelter to
the families in tents for some time," said a senior Zambian government
official who wished not to be named.

Waters that had reached a depth
of six metres (18 feet) forced some people to seek refuge on trees and
rooftops in Mozambique, where the United Nations said it would take urgent
measures to help victims of the floods.

The U.N. noted an estimated
56,000 people had been affected, including 13,000 who had been relocated to
resettlement centres, after heavy rains led to a sharp rise in water levels
on the Zambezi, Pungue, Buzi and Save rivers.

"Governments and
international humanitarian organizations are scaling up their efforts to
ensure a swift response and save lives," said John Holmes, United Nations
Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief
Coordinator said in a statement issued in New York and
Johannesburg.

In early 2007, floods in central Mozambique killed 45
people and left 285,000 homeless, while cyclone Favio displaced another
140,000 people.

It was the worst flooding to hit the former Portuguese
colony since floods in 2000-2001 killed 700 people and drove half a million
from their homes.

International aid agencies also expressed worry over
erratic weather patterns in southern Africa, which have devastated harvest
prospects for millions of people.

"We are greatly concerned at the
emergency responses this early in the rainy season," said Kelly David, Head
of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
for Southern Africa.

"If this continues, we can expect a substantial
impact."

Guy Robinson, president of umbrella farmers group the Zambia
National Farmers Union (ZNFU), told Reuters heavy rains had wiped out some
plantings. He said the most affected area was southern Zambia, one of the
country's major farming regions.

"We are very concerned that the
entire crop has been destroyed in some areas due to heavy flooding and it is
still raining heavily," Robinson said. (Reporting by Johannesburg newsroom
and Shapi Shacinda in Lusaka, Writing by Michael Georgy; Editing by Michael
Winfrey)

Water Shortages Cause Diarrhoea Outbreak

UN Integrated Regional
Information Networks

7 January 2008Posted to the web 7 January
2008

Harare

A diarrhoea outbreak that has hit hundreds of people
in the Zimbabwean capital, Harare, is being attributed to a combination of
factors, including a failure by the local city authority to provide clean
water and collect refuse in residential areas.

Harare's director of
health services, Stanley Mungofa, told journalists during a recent tour of
Mabvuku and Tafara, two of the capital's low-income suburbs hardest hit,
that more than 400 cases had been reported in these areas.

"There
has been an increase in diarrhoea cases, with 459 reports of diarrhoea being
received towards the end of 2007. The figures of diarrhoea cases received so
far are way above what is normally experienced at this time of the year," he
said.

A nurse at Harare's Glen View clinic, who declined to be
identified, told IRIN that while cases were concentrated in Mabvuku and
Tafara, the rest of the capital had not escaped unscathed.

"Most
parts of Harare have gone without water for several weeks and garbage has
not been collected throughout the city, and that means the whole city has an
environment conducive for the spread of waterborne diseases."

Health care
workers on strike

Medical services have been severely stretched since
health workers embarked on a strike at the beginning of the year to demand
higher salaries. The wages of doctors and nurses are rapidly eroded by the
world's highest inflation rate, officially cited at 8,000 percent but
estimated at 25,000 percent by independent economists.

Doctors are
paid Z$60 million monthly (US$30 at the parallel market rate of Z$2 million
to US$1), while nurses earn Z$25 million a month (US$12.50). Government has
offered health personnel a 600 percent wage hike if they return to
work.

Precious Shumba, spokesperson for the Combined Harare Residents
Association, a civic organisation advocating good local governance, said the
incidence of diarrhoea could have been avoided but for the interference of
the ruling ZANU-PF government in 2001, when a government-appointed
commission, staffed by ruling party loyalists ill-equipped to deliver
services to the capital's residents, replaced the city's elected
authority.

"The Harare municipality used to provide clean and reliable
water to residents until the government started meddling in the affairs of
the city by awarding water supply to the parastatal Zimbabwe National Water
Authority (ZINWA), which has failed dismally to provide clean water all the
time."

The two worst affected residential areas have not have had access
to potable water for months and during that time have experienced sporadic
outbreaks of waterborne diseases, including cholera.

"While some
homes have gone for as long as three months without water, the spreading of
waterborne diseases has been encouraged by failure of the commission running
Harare to collect refuse from residential areas," Shumba
said.

"Residents now dump garbage in open areas, which has caused an
increase of flies in many residential areas, making it easy for diarrhoea to
spread. Many sewerage pipes have burst but they are never attended to on
time, resulting in raw sewage flowing in residential areas and creating a
health time bomb in the process," she told IRIN.

Water for a
few

Elias Mudzuri, former executive mayor of Harare and member of the
opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change, told IRIN that during
his term of office he had arranged twinning agreements with European cities,
in terms of which Harare would have received assistance with refuse
collection through the delivery of vehicles to dispose of household
rubbish.

"However, following the sacking of the elected Harare municipal
leadership by the ZANU-PF, all the arrangements that were in place,
especially with the city of Munich, in Germany, were cancelled, as they
insisted that they would only partner [cities with] democratically elected
municipalities," Mudzuri said.

"Most of the problems being
experienced in Harare are generally to do with the fact that people with no
history in local governance were hand-picked to run the capital city, which
is not an easy thing to do."

Most of the problems being experienced in
Harare are generally to do with the fact that people with no history in
local governance were hand-picked to run the capital city, which is not an
easy thing to do

Health services director Stanley Mungofa confirmed that
the diarrhoea outbreak was attributable to sewer blockages, unreliable water
supplies and uncollected domestic refuse. The city is also experiencing
unusually high levels of seasonal rainfall.

The diarrhoea outbreak
has finally moved the authorities to pump water to the affected suburbs, but
at a cost: according to ZINWA chief engineer, Albert Muyambo, "We have
prioritised Mabvuku and Tafara areas and cut off other areas," leaving most
of Harare's other suburbs without water.

Health and Child Welfare
minister David Parirenyatwa told IRIN that health personnel had been
deployed to affected suburbs to monitor the situation. "As far as I know,
there have been no deaths caused by the diarrhoea outbreak, although some
people have been hospitalised."

[ This report does not necessarily
reflect the views of the United Nations ]

Bank governor in the
political fray?

zimbabwejournalists.com6th Jan 2008 23:39 GMT

By Chenjerai Chitsaru

GIDEON Gono, the
governor of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, spoke at some length at the Zanu
PF extraordinary congress last December.

Records of such a distinguished
financial, monetary or economics fundi appearing at the conference of a
ruling party are readily available, even going back to 1924, when Southern
Rhodesia was granted self-governing status by the British
government.

In that respect, then, Gono was blazing a trail of sorts. To
many political analysts of the stormy, unpredictable but basically unstable
political climate in Zimbabwe, this was an extraordinary
development.

It heightened speculation that President Robert Mugabe had
indeed earmarked Gono, in whom he has reposed extraordinary trust, for
something “big” politically.

Gono’s background contains little that
is political. He did distinguish himself as a banker fairly early in his
career, but he was soon performing tasks for President Robert Mugabe which
required him to display some loyalty to him and to his party.

For a
while, he seems to have solved problems which many others had failed to
tackle before him. Yet as he came closer and closer to Mugabe as his
adviser, it was inevitable he would be sucked in to Zanu PF politics, which
invariably revolve around loyalty to Mugabe, persona.

There was a
time when many political pundits, absorbing this special bond between the
two, speculated on the possibility of Gono being roped into Mugabe’s cabinet
as prime minister, a new post he was expected to create to ease his way into
retirement.

Now, there are reports that Mugabe’s critics or his
competitors for the presidency, fumed at this likelihood, which led Mugabe
to shelve the project – for the moment.

But it remains clear that
Mugabe still has a lot of confidence in Gono. He went for his month-long
holiday in the East, leaving Gono to launch one of the most controversial
and, as it turned out, disastrous monetary exercises of his
career.

Gono was going to phase out a Z$200 000 note from circulation in
a bid, or so he said, to beat the crooks he called cash barons: people who
stashed the notes in their homes as part of their clandestine plot to carry
on high-profit business in illegal foreign currency deals.

The whole
plan came unstuck when it turned out that there were not enough of new
currency notes – Z$750 000, Z$500 00 and Z$250 000 - to exchange for the now
“useless” old notes.

Almost on the day the Z$200 000 note was to cease to
be legal tender, Gono withdrew the order.

The outcry could be heard
from the Bvumba mountains in the eastern highlands to the Limpopo river on
the border with South Africa. Gono was vilified by people who had got rid of
the condemned notes before the 31 December deadline without obtaining the
new notes.

Before this, there had been drama involving a woman arrested
with billions worth of the condemned notes. There was also a curious case of
a company which claimed it had been granted trillions of dollars by the
central bank to buy tractors and other farm implements for a government farm
mechanization scheme, in which Gono featured prominently.

All this
left Gono with a lot of egg on his face: besides, there were accusations
being bandied about by his critics that he was not as squeaky clean as he
claimed to be.

A Member of Parliament of the ruling party, the chairman
of a parliamentary committee dealing with finance, among other functions,
had fled the country. Clearly, he had taken the drastic step because the
police had publicly announced that they were seeking him in connection with
illicit foreign currency dealings.

From his hideout overseas, the MP
responded by hurling accusations against Gono, suggesting – as others had
done before him – that the reputation of the bank governor was not as clean
as he made it out to be.

All of this left a bad taste in the mouths of
many citizens, some of them going so far as to call for his resignation.
Gono would not respond publicly to the innuendos of
wrong-doing.

Moreover, it now turns out he is being courted by two
distinct political camps in Zanu PF – one led by Mugabe, the other by his
rivals for power.

For that reason alone, many analysts, even those who
had previously sided with Gono’s monetary policies, now consider him a sort
of “lame duck” bank governor.

They believe he has now become a
political hostage of one or the other political camp in the ruling party.
Moreover, they tie his failure to implement his policies, including the
phasing out of the Z$200 000 note, to his focus as a tool in the
machinations of the two rival Zanu PF camps – meanwhile, as they say, Rome
is burning.

There has never been a category declaration from either
Mugabe or Gono himself about the prospect of his taking up a heavyweight
political post at some future period while Mugae is still in the
saddle.

Yet the confidence the president has invested in the bank
governor would seem to suggest that they are on the same wavelength on the
direction of the economy.

Gono no longer speaks regularly of
“returning to the basics” – re-engaging the IMF and the World Bank. He has
now fully embraced Mugabe’s “Look East Policy”, anchored in solid relations
with the People’s Republic of China.

There was what some people thought
was a glitch when Gono courted South Korea for a bio-diesel project:
Zimbabwe has enjoyed closer links with the North Koreans than with
Seoul.

But even before this, Gono had lavished much praise on the late
dictator Pak Chung Hee’s economic policies in South Korea than on Mugabe’s
comrade-in-arms, the late Kim II Sung’s of Pyongyang.

So far, there
has been no official explanation of this seeming switch in the foreign
policy thrust of the government, except that both governments have
diplomatic relations with Zimbabwe.

So far, there is no suggestion
that Gono has burnt his bridges with Mugabe, or that he has switched sides,
in preparation for a change of government in the 2008 elections.

What
may transpire is that Gono could become an issue in the election campaign.
Clearly, he has performed so dismally as governor of the central bank, most
ordinary voters would vote against any party supporting him – out of both
spite and principle.

He has caused untold heartache and headaches among
depositors.But the political cauldron that is Zimbabwe has always preferred
extremist solutions to what may appear to be intractable
problems.

Gono could be just another casualty of this scenario: both
sides may decide he is no longer a factor in their electoral
equations.

Still, Gono’s performance may influence voters during the
election: there is such palpable distaste for the government’s impunity over
many issues of development, finance and politics that voters may prefer to
record their feelings graphically in the ballot box.

Whichever party
wins the election, Gono will be remembered for a long time as someone who
got his political sums so wrong he should have stuck to monetary issues and
not meddled in politics.

Furore Over Prison Deaths

The bodies of three prisoners' were exhumed last
Friday almost a fortnight after their pauper's burial because the prison
authorities were accused of trying to conceal the cause of death.

The
prisoners from Khami maximum prison were buried in a single grave at Luveve
cemetery on 21 December.

Prison sources said the controversial
episode could lift the lid on an alleged cover-up of prisoners being buried
without the proper procedures being completed.

The sources said there
was suspicion that such burials were designed to camouflage the cause of
death of inmates who are said to have died of unnatural causes.

There
has recently been a flood of reports of alarming deaths in overcrowded jails
due to hunger-related ailments, among them pellagra, a vitamin deficiency
disease caused by a lack of vitamin B3 and protein in the diet.

Other
deaths being targeted for camouflage occur due to HIV and Aids
complications, reportedly rampant in the prisons.

The relatives of
Sibusiso Mkhwananzi (63), raised alarm after Zimbabwe Prison Service
officials informed them of his death only after they had buried
him.

They demanded the exhumation of the body.

Mkhwananzi was
serving an 18-year sentence for rape. He was reportedly buried within 12
hours of his death, together with two prisoners from Masvingo, whose
relatives, it was claimed, could not be located.

Mkhwananzi's relatives
witnessed the exhumation and said they were shocked at his treatment while
in detention and suspected foul play in his death.

"We have arranged for
a private doctor to carry out a post-mortem examination before we can rebury
him," said Samson Mkhwananzi, a family spokesperson.

"Ever since they
informed us of my brother's death they have been trying to avoid the
exhumation and we have now seen what they have been hiding.

"The bodies
were just thrown one on top of the other, as if they were not human beings.
Why were they rushing to bury him without following proper
procedures?"

Mkhwananzi's body was on top of the pile and was barely
60 centimeters under a heap of soil. The other two bodies were reburied in
the same grave.

A prison official, who refused to be identified by name,
claimed there had been a mix-up of bodies at a funeral parlour, leading to
Mkhwananzi's body being taken straight from the prison mortuary to the
cemetery.

"We have an arrangement with the funeral parlour that when we
bring bodies we should remove a certain number that has been there for a
long time," he said.

"The people who were removing the bodies could
have left Mkhwananzi's body in the car while removing others and ended up
mixing it up with those that were due for burial."

The ZPS officer
commanding Matabeleland, Rhodes Moyo, blamed the incident on a mix-up of
bodies and pledged the government would meet the costs of the
re-burial.

During the past two years, Parliament's portfolio
committee on Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs has produced a string
of reports painting a gloomy state of affairs in the country's 43
prisons.

The reports say prisoners go for days without food, toiletries
and essential medical supplies.

As you will all be aware the first part of
our SADC case was won last month. African legal history has been made: for
the first time we as people who are victims of a confrontational regime can
approach an international court and get good and binding judgments meted
out.

I wish to write about this case in general terms before writing
another letter shortly on what we are to do about it.

There is
something so wonderfully civilised about a court of law out in the public
eye. You put your argument and then they put theirs; and everything is so
orderly and calm. There are no threats; no terror tactics; no drums or
slogans or beatings in the darkness on the lawn.

"What is truth?"
Pilate enquired at the trial of Jesus. When Pilate asked that question the
Truth was staring him in the face. "I am the...truth" Jesus had said.
Pilate ignored the truth and tried to bury it in his perverse trial; but the
truth can not be buried.

The court process is the dispassionate search
for the truth as measured against the law in any given situation. The law
ultimately is the truth. "I am the fulfilment of the law" said
Jesus.

Where we ignore the law and the courts and do not use them
resolutely in the face of evil we fail to stand for justice and the truth as
we should. There is no political solution of compromise and appeasement in a
situation of gross injustice such as we are facing now. We have gone beyond
that.

Above everything stands the law. When Jesus said”I am the
fulfilment of the law" He was championing Gods law of justice and mercy
which was personified in himself. His law stands above every law that man
has ever contrived. It is the benchmark that dictates whether we are on the
right road or not.

When Gods finger wrote on the tablet of stone
"thou shalt not steal" nearly 3500 years ago, that commandment, like the
other 9, was not to be altered. Property rights matter. Societies,
civilisations even, crumble without them. In no place in recent history has
this been demonstrated more graphically than in Zimbabwe over the last 7
years.

That is what this SADC case is ultimately about. But are those
that have also had their homes and life’s work stolen from them going to put
pressure on their farmer bodies to go to court too?

Have those in
positions of farmer leadership got the moral courage to try to assert the
law through the international courts?

Are the farming leaders that are
wavering prepared to make room for people that will assert the
truth?

For those farmers still "out there" struggling on, the time has
come to tell your farming leadership with conviction that you want them to
finally take a public legal stand against what is going on; because
publicity is the very soul of justice; and avoiding the tools of justice is
not going to get the job done.

Sitting on the sidelines in secret
"dialogue" simply will not do. It has failed. It never had a chance of ever
working. The truth of this may hurt for some; but the alternative [avoiding
asserting the truth in the courts] will be more painful in the fullness of
time.

The time has come to wade in. This SADC ruling, in Jeremy
Gauntlett's words, is a "heaven sent" opportunity for the farming bodies to
protect their members by getting the same blanket cover for all of
us.

We who have been involved in the Campbell case are ready and willing
to address your decision makers in any meeting that you care to set up for
us. If the "dialogue" policy has not worked over the last 6 and a half years
lets change the policy. Since abandoning the courts nearly 90 percent of
white owned farms have been all but destroyed; and more continue on the road
to ruination every month. Judge for yourselves. The time has
come...

I wrote recently
explaining why it is that we need to use the law. I wish to try to explain
more specifically where we are at with the SADC case and how it can affect
you.

Time is short and I do not need to tell you that there are an ever
increasing number of people being driven off their land. Do we continue to
allow these injustices to continue so that we are then wiped off the land
without trace; or do we try to stand for justice and the future of this
country and indeed our future on this continent?

A precedent has been
set in the first ever case of the SADC tribunal in Windhoek. In the
Campbell case full relief was given to us until such time as the main case
is heard in Windhoek - possibly in March. The Zimbabwe President and the
lands Minister say that they will go by what SADC says. So far they have
done so. The question is "how can others fall under the wing of this SADC
protection?"

Obviously individual farmers or farmer bodies can not go to
SADC unless all domestic remedies have failed. The farmer will therefore
have to have been to the Supreme Court and not got justice meted out there.
As there are no others in that boat, farmers will have to assert that they
are in the same boat as the Campbell’s and that the constitutional and human
rights issues that apply in that case apply to them too. i.e. [amongst other
things]:- they have been targeted because of their skin colour;-
Amendment number 17 is against all principles of justice;- and acquisition
can not be deemed to have taken place without compensation.

To get
protection through the SADC relief farmers have 3 options:

1.
Indivividual farmers take out their own individual cases.2. A class action
is initiated.3. Farmer bodies take out cases to protect their farmer
members.

I wish to deal with the 3 options.1. In the first option we
are looking at the "you’re on your own and you have to fend for yourself"
plan. Unfortunately this has been the reality over several years now. It
has resulted in the Party achieving its aims of driving the white farmers
off the land and making the people poor enough to be easily controlled. The
problem with this plan is:a/ Farmers do not have the time or finance for
going to court individually and paying hefty legal bills.b/ Many farmers
do not really understand the law and what they have to do to remain on the
right side of it until it is "too late".c/ The few dispirited "land" lawyers
left simply could not cope with the work load of putting together hundreds
of separate rushed applications as each farmer gets into the
soup.

2. The second option then is for a class action to be put together
under the class actions act where individuals club together to put forward a
single case to protect themselves. This option is unfortunately fraught
with difficulties. The class actions act makes it extremely complicated, if
not impossible under the present justice system, to make a successful and
timeous application.

3. The third option is that farmer membership
organisations come together and get into the "Campbell Case boat". The only
disadvantage with this is that it means a shift in policy from those
organisations that for one reason or another have not put their names to any
court cases over the last 6 years. I am quite sure that we have come down
the road far enough to now see the sense in a policy shift. With the SADC
court in place we must act. The advantages of membership bodies going to
court are many:a/ It will protect every member of the bodies that go
forward.b/ It will ensure that the best legal brains work on a single water
tight case.c/ It will not cost individual farmers anything.d/ It
will be able to be done timeously before too many more farmers are evicted
from their homes.e/ It will strengthen and unify the agricultural bodies
which is healthy for the long term future of commercial agriculture.f/
It will build the credibility of the agricultural bodies amongst civic
society and the international community.g/ It will be something tangible
for us to say "yes our membership bodies are doing more than paying lip
service to the critical importance of the upholdence of property rights.
They are now asserting those rights through litigating. Let us all throw
our weight behind them for the future of us all."

Advocate Jeremy
Gauntlett SC is perhaps the leading advocate in Southern Africa. He is,
amongst other things, co-chairman of the Forum for Barristers and Advocates
of the International Bar Association [IBA]; former chairman of the General
Council of the Bar of South Africa; founding Vice President of the Bar of
the International Criminal Court etc.. He has spear headed the SADC
case.

After the result of the first part of this case in December
Advocate Gauntlett said that this is a "heaven sent" opportunity for the
farmer bodies to protect their members. We must not, through fear, squander
"heaven sent" opportunities if we indeed do have an eye for the
future.

A decision was made in November last
year at both JAG Board of Trustees and the JAGMA General Committee level,
with regard to a “joinder application” being brought in the SADC Tribunal
with the Campbell Case. That decision was a resounding “affirmative” from
both JAG organisations, in fact there were no reservations tabled, NOR a
single dissenting voice. That decision has been made clear to both the
CAMPBELL and FREETH families and to their respective lawyers. Both JAG
organisations stand poised to assist and wait to be advised of the legal
formalities and requirements.

Advocate Adrian de Bourbon is due in the
country on Wednesday 9th January and will be meeting with concerned and
affected farmers and with the CFU, at 10.00am, at the CFU, to discuss the
way forward re: the merits or demerits of “joinder applications”. Please
could as many farmers as possible attend this benchmark meeting; especially,
but not only, current CFU members.

Zimbabwe: How to live without money

blogger news network

January 6th, 2008 by Nancy
Reyes

One of the “underreported” stories in the world,
according to Doctors without Borders, is
the collapse of the medical system in Zimbabwe.

When I was there, between private donations, church
related charities, international organizations, and the government paying our
salaries, we managed to run a hospital, a clinic, and supervise another locally
funded clinic. Was there good medical care? Heh. I was the only doctor in an
area with over 20 000 people, and my surgery experience was mainly limited to
gynecology, but nevertheless, we did manage to save a lot of lives.

But now things are worse. HIV is widespread (partly
due to the long time men spend away from home working to raise a bride price,
partly due to promiscuity of the better educated who no longer have polygamy as
an outlet, and partly due to native medical practices such as scarification and
untrained people giving injections with unsterilized needles).

But now, the medical system is in collapse. Many of
the public hospitals simply don’t pay enough: with inflation, the salary is
essentially useless. So many doctors and nurses are still on strike. And many
more have emigrated to other countries, including South Africa and the UK, where
they can work for a higher salary.

Yet even when one can find a doctor, there is danger
that without being able to pay, you won’t get seen.

KubatanaBlog has the story of a man
whose wife developed stomach pain, but the public hospital had no lab, and
because the banks had long lines, could not get her seen in a private clinic
either.

An April report by WHO and two other U.N. agencies
said about 6 percent of children in need of treatment were getting it. The
government says more than 2,200 Zimbabweans die every week of AIDS
complications.

Zimbabwe’s delivery of ARVs is below average for low-
and middle-income countries, according to the agencies’ report. In sub-Saharan
Africa, an average 28 percent of the people in need of the drugs get them. In
Zimbabwe, the percentage was about 24 percent.

Without enough money, medicine can’t be imported.
Without money for seeds and fertilizer, there might not be enough food. Without
decent salaries, the hardest working people will leave.

One alternative would be to allow locals to use
foreign currency. Actually, this is
being done, but it is illegal. You are supposed to use official banks to
exchange all foreign currancy, but since the exchange rate is so low, few wish
to do so. Many locals are nevertheless supported by money sent by overseas
relatives or friends. Yet much of this money is lost, either to the government
(who exchanges it for a very low exchange rate or to the black market, where the
exchange rate is higher but one risks arrest. When I sent money to one of my
friends for her nephew’s school fees, not only did those dispensing the money
take a huge percentage, but they gave it to her at the official exchange rate,
which was one fifth of what she could get in the black market. Later I sent
another friend some US cash via a friend traveling there; to prevent breaking
the law, she took a bus to the South African border, exchanged the bills, and
bought groceries. Alas, even that loophole is being made illegal. Perhaps this
is why there are so many companies that offer to send groceries to one’ family
in Zimbabwe.

So what should one do?

Perhaps if South Africa pressured people, things
would improve. But so far that government hesitates to criticize a fellow
revolutionary hero, never mind that he has gone megalomaniac in the past ten
years.

Rev. Hove has started a petition ( alternate petition ) to encourage
Europeans boycott the World Cup Games of 2010 when they are held in South
Africa. Will this help? Sports is a religion in the region, and it might. But it
says a lot about the state of political correct progressive activism that the
petitions against killing whales has 40thousand signitures but those for
Zimbabwe only a few hundred. LINK2Whales are more important
than black children for too many people, unless one can blame Bush for their
deaths, and the dirty little secret is that thousands of Africans are alive
because of Bush’s funding of health projects there.

Sigh.

But until then, all I can do is pray, and send my
friend her blood pressure medicine monthly, since she cannot get it
locally.